Climategate as belief system tipping point

Doing science by consensus is not science at all, says the climatologist all the alarmists love to hate. Not that the enmity bothers Judith Curry too much — and certainly not as much as the debasement of impartial inquiry by which the warmist establishment keeps all those lovely grants coming.

When climatologist Judith Curry visited Melbourne last week she took the time to chat with Quadrant Online contributor Tony Thomas. The professor and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology is something of a stormy petrel in the climate-change community, as she has broken ranks with alarmist colleagues to question the articles and ethics of the warmist faith. This has made her less than popular in certain circles, even inspiring Scientific American, house journal of the catastropharians,to brand her “a heretic” who has “turned on her colleagues.”

Excerpts:

THOMAS: What empirical evidence is there, as distinct from modelling, that ‘missing heat’ has gone into the deep oceans?

CURRY: Basically, none. Observations below 2 km in the ocean are exceedingly rare, and it is only since 2005 that we have substantial coverage below 700 metres.

THOMAS: Are you supportive of the line that the ‘quiet sun’ presages an era of global cooling in the next few decades?
CURRY: One of the unfortunate consequences of the focus on anthropogenic forcing of climate is that solar effects on climate have been largely neglected. I think that solar effects, combined with the large scale ocean-circulation regimes, presage continued stagnation in global temperatures for the next two decades.

THOMAS:If the skeptic/orthodox spectrum is a range from 1 (intense skeptic) to 10 (intensely IPCC orthodox), where on the scale would you put yourself

(a) as at 2009

(b) as at 2014,

and why has there been a shift (if any)?

CURRY: In early 2009, I would have rated myself as 7; at this point I would rate myself as a 3. Climategate and the weak response of the IPCC and other scientists triggered a massive re-examination of my support of the IPCC, and made me look at the science much more sceptically.

51 thoughts on “Climategate as belief system tipping point”

Still – it is bracing to remember Professor Curry’s recent years of rethinking. And “rethinking the science” is something absent from worthy, accomplished scientists like Susan Solomon, or the less worthy Sir John Houghton. Their youtube presentations on global warming show really none at all through the years.

Not even Lindzen (And yes, he is the best) buys into “solar influence” these days. The meme that “something is causing something” seems to be contagious. Much related to politicians “must do something because of something meme….”

Sure, there are effects, like there is with the moon, but the reality is likely to be extremely close to this:

There were very few climate blogs back then and it is interesting that J.Curry dared to participate on discussions on Climate Audit (= father of all Climate blogs governed by science) which was anathema to the Holy AGW Church.
You can measure J.Curry’s evolution by reading what she was saying in 2006 and what she is saying today. Directly relevant to one question asked in the interview linked in the main post.

Although I am not a Keynesian by any stretch, I’ve always liked this quote: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Seems to capture the point nicely.

Of course Keynesianism as currently practiced has a LOT in common with the Gaia Watermelon Cult if you ponder it.

Paul “Krugaton” Krugman for example.

1) we’re in a recession we need to unleash the Xerox cannon and presses boys

2) Porkulous I the largest stimulus ever executed on Earth outside of war

3) when Porkulous fails(as it did) “we need MORE stimulus spending”

I reject out of hand any discipline in “science” that has as a cornerstone of its experimental paradigm that any failure of said theory can only be remedied by increasing the active ingredient, and refuses to examine the underlying structure of an attempted action.

Keynesianism’s current stepchildren and climate “science” both fit the above.

“…solar effects on climate have been largely denied.” Fixed that for you.

When even Lindzen (who is, by the way, the best) doesn’t buy into the solar argument, I think it’s fair to say he and I both deny solar influence, and unashamedly so, since the argument is so poor in the first place. To be sure, the question can be asked “what are we denying?”

While I was critical of her ambivalence in the 2009 period, I must say she is rock solid now, especially this – “Authority rests in the credibility of the arguments, which must include explicit reflection on uncertainties, ambiguities and areas of ignorance and more openness for dissent.

Why would we want to shut up a Frog-like, kept man, who BTW served in Vietnam, from exposing the vapidity and desperation of the other side? Freedom of Speech is crucial. It’s the quickest way to get the Hating Humans Crowd to expose themselves.

Then she needs to find a solar scientist to work out any and all of her possible thoughts on avenues of mechanisms to explore. She needs a critical sceptical eye on this as much as she now does on the CO2 connection. If no direct observation can be seen, it is doubtful there is a connection. If she can’t observe it, why does it matter and whos money will she throw at something that under plain observation, demonstrates no connection? Not mine I hope.

xanonymousblog
“…When even Lindzen …doesn’t buy into the solar argument, I think it’s fair to say he and I both deny solar influence, and unashamedly so, since the argument is so poor in the first place”.

Doesn’t this all rather depend on clouds?
Until we can do the physics/modelling of clouds (and either confirm or disconfirm the role of solar) isn’t all the rest rather pointless?

Judith Curry exemplifies the true scientists who has been willing to examine her beliefs. She offers a prediction that will determine who the real deniers are. She says “I think that solar effects, combined with the large scale ocean-circulation regimes, presage continued stagnation in global temperatures for the next two decades.” I couldn’t agree more.

(Reuters) – Climate change is threatening U.S. landmarks from the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor to the César Chávez National Monument in Keene, California with floods, rising sea levels and fires, scientists said on Tuesday.

National Landmarks at Risk, a report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, highlighted more than two dozen sites that potentially face serious natural disasters. They include Boston’s historic districts, the Harriet Tubman National Monument in Maryland and an array of NASA sites including the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

“The imminent risks to these sites and the artifacts they contain threaten to pull apart the quilt that tells the story of the nation’s heritage and history,” Adam Markham, director of climate impacts at the union, a non-profit organization for science advocacy in Washington D.C. and the study’s co-author, said in a statement.

It really is sad the way so many people are eager to jump from “not proven” to disproven and can safely be ignored from here on out.
Let’s wait for the rest of the experiments that will test the linkages proposed by Svensmark to actually be run before we start declaring with such certainty that the sun plays little role in climate.

The climate debate isn’t settled; it has hardly begun. The Earth has warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century. Most of this rise has been in the last 50 years, coincident with higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels produced by increased fossil fuel consumption. But future atmospheric warming depends on poorly understood feedback loops, and future warming estimates vary significantly. Climate scientists should explain to the public the strengths and limitations of their methods and data; any scientific journal editor would demand as much. Instead, too many scientists simply seek to silence critics.

“Although I am not a Keynesian by any stretch, I’ve always liked this quote: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Seems to capture the point nicely.”

No, not even close. The facts don’t change. It is only what we call facts that change. Remember the old question: “If we call the tail of a sheep a leg, how many legs does that sheep have?”. Answer: only four because changing the name of something does not change the thing. The tail remained being a tail even though we called it a leg.

The interesting thing about Keynes is that he named things that weren’t there but pretended as if they did. His core principle was that a snake could grow fat by simply eating its tail but used far more technical sounding words than that to say it. What else is endless deficit spending on the part of governments other than an attempt to implement that principle? The result is the same, the consumption of wealth and the destruction of the ability to create still more wealth.

Although I am not a Keynesian by any stretch, I’ve always liked this quote: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Seems to capture the point nicely.
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IIRC that quote is by John Stuart Mills, not Keynes.

Obama, Kerry, Brown, and others seem to believe that energy buried somewhere in the depths of the Ocean and not seen for 15-17 years is the cause of increasing wildfires, hurricanes, and tornadoes – none of which are happening. Dr. Curry has not bought this load of goods. Still, she could do with much more exposure to pre-1900 histories as frequently presented on relevant blog postings.
California fires? See this:http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/15/opinion/oe-rutten15
“It’s interesting to recall that our worst single fire preceded urbanization. During the last week of September, the Great Fire of 1889 burned more than 300,000 acres in northern San Diego County and southern Orange County, killing thousands of sheep and destroying the unharvested barley crop.”

Further, regarding warming – whether, whatever, whenever – “the catastropharians” see only good in their remaking and control of society [See John Kerry’s ‘what’s the worse that can happen’ speech]. The government enforced “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” plans have worked well in Spain, Germany, and the UK — a wealth transfer from the average folks to the rich and connected.

The news is full of Antarctic ice news — basically irrelevant as shown on WUWT yesterday. The 97 % consensus crap is repeated endlessly without question. CO2 in the atmosphere continues to increase. And the world does not warm. Good grief!

Climategate as belief system tipping point? Journalist Fred Pearce certainly seemed to think so. As he wrote, in December 2009:

I have been speaking to a PR operator for one of the world’s leading environmental organizations. Most unusually, he didn’t want to be quoted. But his message is clear. The facts of the e-mails barely matter any more. It has always been hard to persuade the public that invisible gases could somehow warm the planet, and that they had to make sacrifices to prevent that from happening. It seemed, on the verge of Copenhagen, as if that might be about to be achieved.

But he says all that ended on Nov. 20. “The e-mails represented a seminal moment in the climate debate of the last five years, and it was a moment that broke decisively against us. I think the CRU leak is nothing less than catastrophic.” [emphasis added -hro]

It would certainly be interesting to know who the “PR operator” was – and which of the “world’s leading environmental organizations” he was working with.

The interesting thing about Keynes is that he named things that weren’t there but pretended as if they did. His core principle was that a snake could grow fat by simply eating its tail but used far more technical sounding words than that to say it. What else is endless deficit spending on the part of governments other than an attempt to implement that principle?
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I may be misunderstanding you here but Keynes never advocated “endless deficit spending”. What almost every politician and economist who claims allegiance to Keynes fails to understand is that he actually suggested that governments should run a surplus in boom times so that they could then, if necessary, run a deficit in times of recession. ‘Keynsians’ generally forget the first bit and misapply the second bit which is why most of them are cheerleaders for permanent deficit spending.

@Michael Palmer – no, not John Stuart Mill but possibly not Keynes either as there seems to be a certain amount of doubt as to whether he actually said it. It’s always attributed to Keynes in one form or another however.

@R. de Haan at 4:02 amWonder how we shut up this incredible super hack [Kerry]

Yours is a point worthy of a full post:

John Kerry, May 18, Boston College Commencement address:

If we make the necessary efforts to address this challenge – and supposing I’m wrong or scientists are wrong, 97 percent of them all wrong – supposing they are, what’s the worst that can happen? We put millions of people to work transitioning our energy, creating new and renewable and alternative; we make life healthier because we have less particulates in the air and cleaner air and more health; we give ourselves greater security through greater energy independence – that’s the downside. This is not a matter of politics or partisanship; it’s a matter of science and stewardship. And it’s not a matter of capacity; it’s a matter of willpower.

Even an idiot can say something brilliant by accident.
If hair-brained ideas to combat climate change are adopted, what’s the WORST that can happen? Let us count the ways….

Dr. Curry has progressed but there is still the equivocation and the use of terms like “politicization” and “cause” are easy examples of keeping it vague and diplomatic beyond any reason (other than a quirky personal political framework).

September 1st 1939; “Germany involved in a border dispute with Poland”

I suppose that would be an accurate description of “facts” but is it anywhere near truthful? Dr. Curry has a million ways of alluding to the truth about the “cause” of climate science bias, motivations and corruption but the social acceptance that she isn’t required to name it directly and the key parties political culture make it all “truthy” not truthful.

Low bar skeptics lead us to disaster historically. They are as much a hazard, in practice, as Earthday “Che” tee-shirt “advocates” to coin another vague descriptor all over Dr. Curry’s statements.

No Whitaker Chambers status for Dr. Curry just yet, we need the whole confession and summary of events driven by Green political culture. Yes, of course she knows and her reasons for obfuscating the motives of events (how Climate Science found its way here) are less than noble.

The jump the shark skeptic praise that isn’t supported by history to this point. She has never directly identified the political ID of the core “consensus” orthodoxy even when she dissents from it. So she doesn’t refute the basic ideology only the tactical extremes and the failed results.

Keynes died a pretty unhappy man about the state of his policy work, the idiots who endlessly twisted and contorted his views. What he would of thought of the buffoonery of a Paul Krugman one can only wonder. The permanent, government managed inflationist system was not something he perceived to have advocated even if that is the net result in practice in his name.

After the great conflict, the second (third if you consider the Depression itself as an entity) in his lifetime he was deeply depressed about the essential debt destruction of the British establishment that was evident at Bretton Woods. Certainly he realized his contribution to British economic decline and what the implications of carrying forward compounded social debts would mean to the world.

Can you think of any other comment more relational to the climate/Keynes orthodox then below??;

Just like that hideously corrupt IPCC, in your wholly inadequate assessment of “solar” you have looked at only insolation and its well-known very small variations, while ignoring the far greater significance of variations in the solar wind and the resulting knock-on effect on cosmic rays which in turn effect cloud formation and albedo.

Professor Nir Shaviv says—only in not quite so many words—that you’re all full of sh*t. I agree with him.

No, it’s not “solar” that’s garbage, but rather the IPCC and its coterie of lunatic ecotard ‘religious’ fanatics. Indeed, the only thing you lot are good for is landfill, with massive amounts of lime. Best place for you, and the sooner the better.

‘Climategate as belief system tipping point’, No. the real tipping point is:-

Co2 tipping point!

‘There’s a really interesting paper from the Journal Science…by Stephen Davies, Carnegie Institute Stamford, California, they have asked the question we are all worried about climate change, we are all worried can we rescue the Earth from it’s fate…but is it already too late or if we make changes now can we turn it around…is it yet game over or not. They approached this in an interesting way what they did, if we take all the energy infrastructure and the traffic and population, we know on Earth at the moment and freeze that in time and therefore let it live out it’s life time because they know coal power station lasts 40 years, a car for about 17 years, people are around 60-70 years, an so on, we know therefore how much co2 that lot is going to produce and they come up with about 500 billion tons co2 between now and 2060, they say that will warm the Earth up by about 1.3C compared to pre-industrial levels when we started to real churn out the co2. That’s about 0.7C hotter than now…what will that do to co2 ultimately though…that means the Earth will stabilize at 430ppm…that will mean we are a lot way short of 450ppm,…the point of no return, when we think the climate will go into positive feedback cycle and the game would be over…in other words it is not the present infrastructure …it’s what we are going to build next so in other words we have to pay particular attention to making sure we roll out carbon free infrastructure, as Stephen Davies explains…’BBC Radio 5.

Its father would not recognize Neo-Keynsianism as advocated by Krugman & other acolytes. The movement takes his name in vain. Keynes, whatever his other faults, understood that inflation (increase in the money supply) was not always a good thing, if ever.

Its father would not recognize Neo-Keynsianism as advocated by Krugman & other acolytes. The movement takes his name in vain. Keynes, whatever his other faults, understood that inflation (increase in the money supply) was not always a good thing, if ever……”””””

The first ever (known) extended period of inflation; never corrected later by deflation occurred in the 1500s; It was caused by GOLD & and SILVER. the inflation proof safe havens..

Somebody tracked the CPI from 1066 to the recent present; seems like a good place to start.

The index, went up and down, with this war, and that plague, but usually stayed flat, with about 20-30 year glitches, just like the climate.

Then in the 1500s, it took off on a steep ramp up to a new plateau at six times the number, and stayed there till the US went off the gold standard, and has been going up ever since at that same Elizabethan era slope.

It was the Spaniard’s rape of the Americas, that carted gold and silver, and gemstones back to Europe on their pirate ships.

Wasn’t any more goods being made, so the prices just skyrocketed to absorb all the fake money.

Well Frankie Drake and his fellow English pirates, raided the Spanish fleets, and got their own share of the loot. But QE-I met them at the docks, and grabbed the loot, for the Royal coffers.

Used it to buy the British Empire, instead, so “England missed out on Europe’s first inflation.

Today, prices of food are skyrocketing, and fuel too. Bread and milk are each five dollars.

But they no longer seem to count that in the CPI any more, so the gummint says there is no inflation. And people still hoard goldor silver, as if you can eat the stuff. Well that depends on there being an even bigger idiot willing to give you food in exchange for your “rare coins” wealth.

They are always “Brilliant uncirculated” when you buy them; and “fair” when you try to dump them.

The tipping point for me occurred in two stages: first, when I recalled my readings of history, going back to ancient Egypt (which brought me to the four prior historically documented warm periods, which occurred without benefit of fossil fuel based industry and consumption, and which demonstrated the natural cyclical character of climate change); and second, when I observed the environmental, as well as economic, ruinousness of so-called “renewable” and “alternative” energy sources. The first occurred a good many years ago, when the alarmist meme was global cooling; the second, more recently, during my employment with a municipal utility in California, which gave me occasion to see first-hand both the exorbitant costs and the frightful destruction attendant upon “renewable” energy. At this point I was already a skeptic.

Observing these things then led me to investigate the hard science of climate change, which has turned out to be so totally contrary to the political science that has been presented as “science.” This further investigation has confirmed for me a truth, for which no contradiction is anywhere in sight, that the effect of man’s activities and carbon dioxide on climate is statistically indistinguishable from zero – and that means that, in practical terms and in terms of any policy response to it, is zero in practical terms.

The crowning moment of my skepticism has come with the desperate attempts by alarmists to silence skeptics and conceal the evidence against their dogma. For me at least, the appeal to authority will always work in reverse – if that is all someone has to support their position, you can be 100 percent certain their position is 100 percent wrong. Climate models? I rest my case. Empty assertions, that’s all the alarmists have.

All of this is due to the CO2 derivatives markets set up by those who lead us and are very rich. They hoped to play this market ruthlessly and, their own words, make it grow even bigger than the energy markets themselves.

All of this is happening at the Hubbert Oil Peak. Yes, this entity still looms over us all. I would suggest that the move forcing us from burning coal is due to trying to protect it as a resource for later.

The rising cost of energy is due to the Hubbert Oil Peak whereby oil is harder to find, harder to refine. This is why so many wars now happen to be where there is a lot of oil reserves in the ground.

CURRY: In early 2009, I would have rated myself as 7; at this point I would rate myself as a 3. Climategate and the weak response of the IPCC and other scientists triggered a massive re-examination of my support of the IPCC, and made me look at the science much more sceptically.

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I think yet another “Thank You” is owed to “Mr. FOIA”.
Without Climategate, what reason was there for scientist to not accept what had passed peer-review?